"Our aircraft was never in Iranian airspace. It was always flying in international air space. The recognized limit is 12 nautical miles off the coast and we never entered the 12 nautical mile limit," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in responding to questions from reporters after CNN reported the incident.

Little said the United States believed this was the first time an unmanned aircraft was shot at by the Iranians in international waters over the Gulf. In December of 2011, a U.S. surveillance drone crashed in eastern Iran. Iranians claimed to have shot it down, and created a toy model of the drone to celebrate its capture.

Little stopped short of calling the incident an act of war although the Pentagon was concerned.

Two U.S. officials explained the jets were part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps force, which has been more confrontational than regular Iranian military forces.

At least two bursts of gunfire came from the Su-25s' cannons. The drone started to move away but the Iranian aircraft chased it, doing aerial loops around it before breaking away and returning to Iran.

The Obama administration did not disclose the incident before the presidential election, but three senior officials confirmed the details to CNN on Thursday. They declined to be identified because of sensitive intelligence matters surrounding the matter.

The drone's still and video cameras captured the incident showing two Su-25s approaching the Predator and firing onboard guns.

The Iranian pilots continued to fire shots that went beneath the Predator but were never successful in hitting it, according to the officials.

U.S. military intelligence analysts are still not sure if the Iranian pilots simply were unable to hit the drone due to lack of combat skill, or whether they deliberately were missing and had no intention of bringing it down.

But as one of the officials said, "it doesn't matter, they fired on us."

Little said the United States has to assume Iran was trying to bring down the Predator.

The United States protested the incident but had not heard back from Iran.

1. "Our aircraft was never in Iranian airspace. It was always flying in international air space. The recognized limit is 12 nautical miles off the coast and we never entered the 12 nautical mile limit," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in responding to questions from reporters after CNN reported the incident.

2. In December of 2011, a U.S. surveillance drone crashed in eastern Iran.
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I call bullsh!t. Where is the evidence? Where is the tapes/footage of the ongoing attacks? I'm QUITE sure this is just MORE tall tales being fed to the American public, to justify later attacks on Iran. Having said that, I'm NO fan of the leadership of that country. But, time and time again, the American leadership has OUTRIGHT LIED about things JUST like this, to validate whatever scheme they're up to at the time.

Why do I say this? Lets see....anyone have the time and money to go to Iran to investigate this for themselves? No? Exactly. This is yet another 'incident' that conveniently happens on the other side of the planet, because the American leadership KNOWS that nobody will go to Iran, just to see if it's true.

I spent a career in the military, and I can VOUCH for the fact that this happens on a REGULAR basis.

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So picture this. There's an Iranian drone 15 miles off the coast of the United States. We - what? Sit still and wait for it to get closer? Call their government and ask that it be removed? Demand that the United Nations censure Iran? Or would we blast it into oblivion and feel totally justified in doing so?

No the correct answer is, invite it to a party. Yes the correct answer is to destroy it, because it is spying ou the U.S.. And when it comes to spies, all is fair game. It's people like you that brings us Benghazi and the deaths of 4 Americans.

Yes! We, Americans, are SO worried about China. Soon as they can manufacturer a jet engine they might be trouble As it stands, once shipping lanes are cut for China to Russia, they will even be unable to use cold-war technology to power their "stealth" air fighters.

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CNN's Security Clearance examines national and global security, terrorism and intelligence, as well as the economic, military, political and diplomatic effects of it around the globe, with contributions from CNN's national security team in Washington and CNN journalists around the world.